Innocence of Muslims?

The riots in the Muslim world in the past couple of weeks, besides being tragic for the damage and harm they've caused, have been a very interesting peek into social, psychological, and political study.

I do a LOT of current events reading, and I do a LOT of study usually before I end up writing any of my blog posts, in order to make sure I get the facts right. I have always believed that you cannot have a solid position on something unless you've actually taken the time to study it. If you have not studied something, then making any sort of claim about it is akin to a blind man trying to explain the colours of a rainbow. Political issues are rife with such blind "prophets" telling other people what to believe and why, but the true test of accuracy is not found in belief, but rather, in hard facts and actual truth.

Attack On US Embassy Pre-Planned

Muslims have been rioting across the globe since September 11 when a group of Muslims (evidence strongly suggests that these were mostly militia terrorists affiliated with Al-Qaeda) attacked the US embassy in Libya, killing 4 people and injuring dozens others. One of the people killed was the US ambassador to the region. The attack included the use of mortars and rocket propelled grenades and many witnesses and high ranking officials within and around the area have made it very clear that the bulk of the people involved in the attack were linked to terrorist groups. What's unsettling is that evidence also strongly suggests that the US government had plenty of warning in advance that this attack was coming. This entire incident was a pre-planned terrorist attack purposely intended to coincide with the September 11 date of the World Trade Center terrorist attack in the USA that killed 3000 people in September 11 2001.

I had a person respond to a previous blog post I made about this stuff telling me that the attack in Libya and the riots had nothing at all to do with the September 11 terrorist attacks. Sorry, that's definitely wrong. The attacks were well planned in advance and purposely carried out on September 11.

USA Today: Deadly Embassy Attacks Were Days In The Making

Days of planning and online promotion by hard-line Islamist leaders helped whip up the mobs that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Egypt and launched a deadly attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya that killed an ambassador and three others.

 Anderson Cooper, CNN: US Warned of Threats

Libyan officials say they warned the U.S. about the growing extremist presence three days before the U.S. Consulate attack that killed four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi. CNN's Arwa Damon reports.

 Libyan President: No Doubt Attack Planned

Libya President Mohamed Yousef El-Magariaf said Sunday that 50 arrests have been made in connection with last week's "preplanned" attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead.

CBN News: Preplanned Attack Or Spontaneous Riot?

The president of Libya said he believes al Qaeda is responsible for the deadly attack at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi.

The USA has from the beginning officially stated that this was a random riot instigated by a film trailer that insulted Islam, however a huge bulk of evidence that has been piling up since the original attacks on September 11 have made it pretty clear that this was all planned well in advance of September 11 by terrorists. In fact, the personal journal of the US Ambassador to Libya even makes it clear that he was getting very concerned with the recent increases in threats and was asking for more security because he feared something might be coming in connection to September 11. Currently, the US government still says it believes the attacks were spontaneous but at the same time it has said that clearly this was a terrorist attack, and they're still investigating.

Not All Muslims Riot, But All The Riots ARE Muslim

Since September 11 2012 when the attack in Libya took place, Muslims all over the world have been rioting and protesting in connection to a film trailer called "Innocence of Muslims" that insults Islam. Some people out there have been saying that the riots have nothing to do with Islam, or Muslims, and that to label these rioters as such is wrong because it paints a bad (politically incorrect picture) of what's really going on.

But here's the thing. ALL of these attacks, riots, and protests, are being carried out by Muslims and they are doing it because of a video on YouTube that insulted Islam. They're not rioting because of taxes, high gas prices, not having the latest iPhone, or because Britney Spears is a new judge on the talent TV show "X Factor"... They're rioting over a movie that insulted Islam. Islam is the key, the factor, the core of this whole mess.

Is it all Islam? All Muslims? Absolutely not! Islam is the second largest religion in the world (a close second to Christianity). There are literally billions of Muslims across the globe and only a miniscule minority are the ones rioting. But it cannot be forgotten that the ONLY people rioting about all this ARE Muslims. It's all about the insult to Islam. That's the cause, the trigger, the reason. Not the religion itself, but the insult to that religion. That means that the riots are religiously motivated and the religion is Islam.

If this were just a small localized thing you could brush it off and say that it was a bunch of hyper sensitive bad apples in one area. But it's NOT just one little area. It's world wide!

Wikipedia: Protests Against "Innocence of Muslims"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(UPDATE: I originally wrote the rough draft of this article late September 24. The Wikipedia page listing the summary information that I partly used for the following lists of riot locations and casualties has since been removed by a Muslim Wikipedia group as it obviously looked bad for them. Thankfully, I had a feeling something like this might happen, so I screen grabbed the website yesterday before this change took place.)

The Wikipedia group that has modified the article:

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Islam, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Islam-related articles on Wikipedia.

Here's the original Screen Capture, before the information was removed (September 24). The webpage was saved in an internet archive format. I made a screenshot of that saved page this morning so I could post it here for you all to see. The summary box on the right hand side has since been removed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The above link to a Wikipedia page has been tracking the incidents around the world. It does not list all of them, but it's a good place to start so you can see just how widespread and violent this whole explosion has been.

These are the places where violent protests and full fledged riots of Muslims have broken out since September 11.

Libya
Yemen
Tunisia
Sudan
Egypt
India
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Lebanon
Israel

France
Germany
Belgium
United Kingdom
Denmark
Greece
Australia

And the list continues to grow every few days.

79 deaths, 687 injuries, and thousands of arrests.

Folks, this is NO minor incident. This is a global crises. A world wide violent uprising and it's been going strong for two weeks. Greece was just added to the list a couple of days ago. The US has closed its embassies in many Muslim countries to try and protect its citizens that are working there.

In most places these violent attacks have been small, consisting of fifty to a few hundred rioters. People have been injured, killed, and have destroyed buildings and cars. The harm and damage has been substantial, far worse than other riots in recent years that have taken place in western countries over the economy (as in Europe) or the riot in Vancouver Canada because the Vancouver Canucks hockey team lost against the Boston Bruins in the NHL hockey playoffs a couple years ago. This is much bigger and much uglier because people are being killed and it's happening all over the world at the same time.

This does NOT represent all of Islam, not by a long shot. But it DOES represent SOME of the people that follow it as their religion and belief system. The whole upheaval is because of an insult to Islam, and these are Muslim people (Muslim people only) committing the mass violence and crimes on behalf of their religion. There is NO getting around that fact. That this has happened in so many countries and so many cities should be a wake up call to anyone that thinks "Islam is the religion of peace". It's got a nasty violent underbelly that though a minority, still packs a heck of a bloody punch (or sword), and it's global.

Study Reveals Terrifying Climate Change Future

Haha! This reminds me of a horoscope I read once. "If you quit your job, it'll go no where."... You think!?

"if global temperatures reach levels at which coral reefs are damaged, then coral reefs will be damaged."

American Thinker: Reefer Madness (Climate Change Edition)

This (and "man-caused climate change" in general) is an excellent case of science and scientists that build an elaborate theory and science-based scenario on top of gigantic unknowns and "maybes".  

Our findings show that under current assumptions regarding thermal sensitivity, coral reefs might no longer be prominent coastal ecosystems if global mean temperatures actually exceed two degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level.

This is one of the big reasons I was never convinced by Evolutionism and Material Naturalism as an explanation for life. You can't build a solid scientific theory on little more than conjecture! This is like the "just so" stories rampant throughout Evolutionism. "Such and such lifeform MAY have evolved such and such trait (since it exists, though we don't know how exactly that came about) because of changes in climate, food sources, competition, and any and all other possible environmental or evolutionary changes around it..." Wow! Really!? You think it maybe could have because of maybe this and that if these things happened? Astounding factual science there folks!

In the climate change study example of the article I've linked to, the study basically says that IF previous predictions about climate change pan out (come true), and IF it has the effects they think it might on corals, then all their predictions that they THINK might come true, WILL come true... So, "If we're right about this, that, and those other things, then this and that will probably (more than likely) be the result, just like we predicted and expected..."

And so the "science-based" monstrous fictional construct grows and grows, study upon study upon study connected, interconnected, attached and expanded upon until it's so huge that how could anyone possibly deny its reality!? And they completely forget that the entire theory at every single point along the extensive pathway was based on unproven speculation and guess work that has never actually been solidly and convincingly shown to be actually true. It ultimately becomes a grand fairy tale with scientific bits and pieces mixed in, though actually digging reveals the gaping holes and gigantic creative imaginative story telling that underlies the entire thing.

When you go digging for solid answers and are left with little more than these sorts of ephemeral "maybe if" explanations as the believed truth, then your "scientific theory" isn't actually science, it's just creative science fiction.

Offend Islam, Cause Riots And Violence

YouTube: Egypt And Libya Riot Over US Film

"... It [the video] was produced by a real-estate developer from California who put its trailer on YouTube, something that very few people saw before a preacher from Florida, Terry Jones, started promoting it. The same preacher who's burning of a Koran last year triggered riots in Afghanistan. This latest film obviously caught fire with Islamists, with people in the part of the world where they don't just let things like that go, as they didn't with the caricatures of Mohammad in a Danish newspaper in 2005. That triggered a lot of riots, as we remember. Also as they didn't let go with a number of other incidents."

A couple weeks ago, on September 11 (the anniversary of the horrible Muslim extremist terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York that killed over 3000 people), Muslims across the globe showed their solidarity to combat terrorism by rioting and attacking US embassies, injuring many, ruining property, and even killing a US ambassador inside one of those embassies (in Libya). The entire eruption is being blamed on a short little video online that insults Islam, though the video has actually been around since 2009.

Islam's response to insult is drastically different from the response of Christians. Christians will say how offended they are about something, but won't riot and physically attack people over it. Because of this, we get all kinds of blatant over the top crude and truely horrible insults against Christianity, God and Jesus Christ constantly. By and large, we get upset, but don't attack. We turn the other cheek. In fact, if we DO make much of a fuss about such things, we're told to shut up because it's all a matter of "free speech". Blasphemy is protected under "Free Speech" and the courts will side against the offended Christians on that basis. So we get absolutely heinous blasphemies all over the place, even in museums and universities and it's all labeled "art" and "free speech".

For example, I read a while back about a big name university (sorry, I forget which one and don't have the link) in the United States banning a small Christian group from showing Passion of The Christ on campus, meanwhile, that same university a few months later put on a production of "F***ing for Jesus", a play ridiculing and insulting Christianity, God, and especially Jesus. "F***ing for Jesus" is art protected by free speech...The list of examples likes this is endless and disgusting. But Christians, even if we make a bit of a fuss (noise) about something, are told to shut up.

Islam, on the other hand, goes into a violent rage whenever the religion is insulted, even a little. Muslims riot, protest, damage property, attack and kill people, threaten death on the blaspheming infidels, and pretty much go mad with exacting retribution. Don't get me wrong, this is by far a minority. For every 1 Muslim in the world that reacts violently to perceived insult, there are hundreds more that respond peacefully (if at all) much like Christians do. A classic example of this is if a Bible is burned by someone in a show of hatred towards the Bible or Christianity, Christians go, "That's not very nice. Now back to our lives we go." When the Koran gets burned you get riots, violence, injuries and death in the streets of Muslim nations. Death to the infidel!

Appeasement And Double Standard

What's shocking is how the Western World is responding to this sort of over reaction. Property is damaged, people are injured and even killed, and the media and government goes, "The violence is the fault of the people who insulted Islam, not the Muslims and their religion of peace..."

Everyone is blaming an anti-Islam short video for the latest rash of violence, but the truth is that there's always something. Cartoonists who make a joke about anything related to Islam get death threats, their houses are fire bombed, their families threatened, and some even flee for their lives. And that's in Western countries! In some Muslim countries if you dared say anything bad about Islam, there's a good chance you'll end up dead. Heck, just being a Christian in many of these countries is qualification for being attacked, raped or killed (your family included). Yet the bulk of the blame always seems to be pointed at the person "igniting" the flare up, the person who somehow insulted Islam, and not the people actually committing the atrocious crimes.

You know how I mentioned that Christianity has to take insult and blasphemy as "free speech" and not make a big deal out of it? Islam seems to get the opposite treatment. The White House actually told YouTube and Google to take the offending anti-Islam video down. That's right! The US government is actively trying to block content that might offend Muslims online... Government law enforcement officials even hunted down the makers of the movie to intimidate and "re-educate" them so that they won't produce such things again. Politicians are apologizing for the video's existence and saying how terrible it is that someone would make such a thing. Meanwhile, Muslims riot for justice and vengeance... Even more shocking is that Hollywood, the bastion of "freedom of speech" excuses for content that ridicules Christianity on a VERY regular basis, is in agreement with the government and mainstream media! Block the content! Stop the insults to Islam!... Talk about being monumentally hypocritical!

Conservative commentators have been talking about all this and through interviews with "people in the know" and from the words that Muslims across the world are saying every day, it's becoming clear that such angry violent responses are done with the full intention of making it illegal to insult Islam on a global scale. The idea is to scare and terrorize the world into submission. It's a coordinated strategy, and it's working.

Christians get "F***ing for Jesus" and told to shut up when we complain about it. Islam gets protection from insult under the law... That's right! Many Western countries have adopted or have been slowly adopting (or currently calling for the adoption of) laws that block free speech with regards to Islam, making it illegal to insult the religion or Muslims in any way. Even just the perception of insult or offense will get you in trouble with the law. It's been pushed forward under the banner of respect for religion, culture and people, and it trumps freedom of expression and free speech, just like how homosexuality trumps freedom of religion (or Christianity anyways) and free speech.

Maybe Muslims have their strategy right. Maybe it takes violence to stop people from insulting your religion of choice... No, probably not. If it was Christians behaving this childishly and violently, it would be the Christians that get squashed by the law, not the people insulting them in the first place. It really wouldn't matter what we do. Somehow Christianity is absolutely free game and Islam is off limits, and both stances are protected under law.

New TV Show "Revolution"

New NBC Show, "Revolution", Monday nights 10 pm.

What happens to the world when suddenly all electricity and technology stops working? That's the theme of the new NBC serialized action adventure drama that premiered Monday night September 16.

The Good

The show's visuals were quite good. The visual effects were pretty good. Scenes showing nature over run city scapes like from "I Am Legend" and "After People" (or whatever that Discovery channel show was called where all people on earth suddenly vanish) were cool. The nature backdrops of forests, fields, farms, streams and waterfalls were beautiful. It's a post apocalyptic world where nature has "taken the world back" instead of having been wiped out, which is kind of different.

The mysteries surrounding what caused the electricity to stop working and how are quite interesting, but hardly get touched on at all in the first episode of the show. It basically just happens, and there's a couple characters that might know something about what caused it, and that's about all we know. There's a hint suggested by one geek character that it's much more than just an EMP (electro magnetic pulse), that something big like physics itself going wonky, might be at play. Why and how, we have no clue at all and the few people that do know (or did know), aren't saying anything to anyone.

Three characters stood out to me as the most interesting parts of this new show, Miles (the former soldier turned mercenary on the run who might know pieces of the big puzzle), the Captain of a militia group hunting down Miles and his relatives (one of the most engaging characters of the show so far, well acted), and woman named Grace living alone on a farm with a secret attic full of interesting mysterious stuff.

Interesting characters circled.

The other two characters and actors that had real potential but unfortunately died before the first half of the episode was over were the mother and father of two of the show's lead teen characters. The parents were a heck of a lot more interesting and grabbing than the two young adults were, in my view, but unless we get to see them in lots of flash backs, they're now out of the picture to be replaced by their pretty looking but ho-hum character young adult kids.

Lots of action, but a little too violent + a big body count.

The biggest thing going for the show is the mysteries and the action. If the show can buckle down on some of the good characters and focus more instead of this all over the place jumping and poorly executed plot points, it has potential.

The Bad 

The first and most notable "bad" thing is the obvious Hunger Games Katniss rip off. Charlie is a touch adventuress girl in a brown leather jacket with a crossbow who likes to hunt. *rolls eyes*. And the clothes she's wearing looks very out of place and impractical. Low riding leather pants? Seriously? The world has all but ended and she looks like she's dressed for class in high school, as does her super model looking brother. Both those characters didn't do anything for me.

The show gets rushed along through a pile of different scenes that are fast paced but are so haphazard that they feel overly forced. The show could have been much better if it had been given 2 hours to draw some of the characters and events out. Instead, we're left with people making very stupid decisions without any real explanation as to why so that they can push the story in a particular direction. It feels like way too much shoehorning all the way along, like they were aiming and needing certain spots to hit and just jammed them all together.

The Verdict

The show has potential, but it has to focus on the more interesting characters and story aspects and quit with the "don't they look pretty" and dumb forced plot points. Stick to the interesting stuff and the interesting characters that were very briefly touched on in the pilot.

Overall, I'd give the show many a 6 our of 10 mostly because of the glimpsed potential and interesting theme. Over the last few years I've seen a lot more new series pilots that were way better at developing characters, grabbing the audience, and dropping you into the world than Revolution's opening did. Similar shows like Invasion, Jericho, Flash Forward, The Event, and Tera Nova all had much better opening episodes (in my opinion), but none of them lasted beyond 1 season.

Unless the show can transform itself beyond what was shown in the 1 hour series premiere, I can't imagine this show lasting beyond half a season. It's initial viewership ratings were pretty good for NBC, but how many people return for the 2nd and 3rd episodes will be the real benchmark.

Rated PG?

Just a quick side note... The show was rated PG and aired at 10 pm. This show was not PG in my books. It should have been PG-13 or 14A. There was quite a lot of violence, including some gun shots and sword slices that included mild blood spray. A large number of people are killed in close combat by way of guns, arrows, and sword and knife slices and stabs, some in the slow "Ugh, I've just been stabbed, am dying, and can't believe it, I'll fall down now in shocked surprise," cliche. Two bad guys cough up blood and die after drinking poison by accident, and the lead young adult girl (Charlie) gets rescued from an attempted rape (she gets dragged away but the bad guy is stopped after a short wrestle with her).

The Origin of Life Simulated

I decided to do a little experiment on my computer. I'm a hobby programmer. I like to program for fun. I created a program that would generate and store lots of different numbers at random, mixing, combining, removing and adding numbers over and over again, all with the hope of something akin to life eventually making an appearance somewhere in the mix. This might surprise you, but nowhere in the trillions upon trillions of numbers did anything remotely resembling the ordered complexity of life emerge. Not in the slightest, not even once, despite trillions and trillions of "generations". Why is that, do you think?


The Problem For Materialist Scientists

People that believe in a purely naturalistic material universe have to try and account for the origin of life somehow. They cannot simply say, "It's always existed," because we know without doubt that this is not the case. Everything that exists in the universe as we know it had a cause, a beginning. And so just like everything else, life had to have also had a beginning. But life is so incredibly complex and stuffed full of highly detailed instructional information and functionality that it just could not have happened by random chance. Simply throwing a bunch of molecules into a big box and shaking it up will not come anywhere close to making a living organism, even a "simple" life form, because there is no such thing as a "simple life form". It would be like throwing trillions of english letters and punctuation symbols into a box, shaking it a lot for a long time, and expecting them to come up with one of Shakespear's famous manuscripts with only the slightest bit of spelling errors throughout. It's not going to happen. Mere randomness is NOT going to ever be able to "come up" with something like life. Never!

And thus, my program, my computer simulation based entirely on randomized numbers over and over again, will NEVER come up with anything resembling life. Random = Random, chaos, no order, no structure, no functional information, just meaningless useless garbled data with absolutely no point, pattern or structure.


My Simulation vs Nature

My program fails for one very important reason. There's no influences working upon the meaningless numbers. There's no potential of any kind there. Random numbers are random numbers and nothing more. What is it that would transform my simulation into something more similar to the universe that exists all around us? What would make my simulation more like "real life"?

Controllers, influences, connections, natural laws of physics and chemistry and all things that underlie the entire fabric (invisible and otherwise) of the universe itself! The systems and structures described in science are the heroes, the reason why random becomes non-random, in the origins of life debate. But does it really solve anything?

Here's the problem... All these complex and simple mathematical and scientific laws that govern everything in our universe from all matter to all energy are in and of themselves, information. *GASP*! That's right folks! A single basic molecule is itself information, a set of particles that have come together in a specific way to form a specific unique molecule with its own unique properties. The laws of physics and chemistry that underlie this entire structure are ALSO information because without them existing in the first place, the molecule itself could not exist, ever! The molecule requires the laws of the universe and those laws enable the particles in matter and energy to take form and have meaning.

2 + 2 = 4

Now remove the "equation" part, the operators.

224

What does that mean? Does it mean the same thing as it did before? No, obviously not. Now it can be read as "two hundred and twenty four", a whole number with 3 digits. But what makes 224 mean anything at all? The information that we use to interpret and understand that number.

That's the whole point. Nothing has any meaning except by way of interpretation and result. Think of it all like a giant equation. Meaningless random garbage + natural laws of the universe to shape it all = the actual universe. If nothing has meaning, than nothing = nothing and everything could not exist in the first place. Everything that gives our universe structure and any sort of order comes out of the fundamental underlying mathematical and scientific systems (the "laws") that dominate all matter, energy and whatever else exists out there. Without that "meaning", there is empty nothing.

The entire universe is a gigantic system of mathematical and scientific structure. Atheists and their like will argue that "there is no meaning to any of it, it just exists", but it could not "just exist", ANY of it, unless the rules and laws we discover and analyze through science and math were running and in operational order in the first place.


Conclusion

My simple computer simulation could never randomly come up with anything remotely similar to life. All it does is randomly generate numbers and mix those numbers in all sorts of strange and purely random ways. But there are no real controllers or systems involved in any of it. It's just random numbers, always and forever. Something must effect those numbers, operate on those numbers, for anything to take shape or change.

Our universe is not random nothingness. Instead, there are mathematical and scientific laws that govern absolutely everything in our universe and allow it to exist and be understood in the first place. Without these laws and systems, there would literally be nothing at all. The systems, the structure, the laws, all give everything meaning and substance. In fact, all of these laws are so incredibly well fine-tuned, that if they were different by even a tiny fraction, our entire universe would completely fall apart. This is what's known as the "fine-tuned universe" conundrum.

So where did those consistent laws come from? Where did the math and science that holds our universe together come from? Not our understanding of it, because it doesn't require us to understand it for it to function. Where did it all originate? It cannot have been the result of anything other than guided purpose. Our universe is intelligently, intentionally, programmed, because absolutely nothing can create such ordered structure and purpose except for a rational intelligent mind.


Take my computer again as an example. Unless I implement some sort of informational system of structure, meaning, and methods to my simulation of randomly generated numbers, the numbers simply are, with no rhyme or reason. It's when I start making the numbers mean something, have some sort of structure and connection to each other, that they become more. Matter, energy, and the universe itself, is information with meaning, understandable, examinable, calculable, all because of the mathematical and scientific "laws" that underlie the whole thing.

THAT does NOT and CANNOT spring from nothing. No giant explosion can cause that. No millions upon millions of universe iterations can produce that. SOMETHING intelligent has to cause it. The very fabric of space time, energy and matter, are all based upon informational structure. So even if you want to imagine that these "laws of physics and chemistry" can actually somehow have generated life itself (which by the way, is 100% impossible), as the material naturalist you STILL have to account for the existence of the informational systems that underlie and run the entire universe.

And here we are, mankind, capable of actually measuring and trying to understand all of this. God's living handiwork, trying to understand God's handiwork all around us. Absolutely incredible!


Follow Up: The Fine-Tuned Universe

There are a few naturalistic theories out there that try to explain this very serious dilemma of the "fine-tuned universe", however none of them are all that good. Mostly, they revolve around the idea of infinite possibilities, that our universe is one of an infinite number of universes and our universe just happened to "get it right". Another common idea is that somehow at the "Big Bang" event, the very laws of the universe did not apply as they do now, but somehow "fell into place". Why? How? Any proof? No answers to those questions exist, and neither does any sort of proof to support the few "best" materialistic theories that exist.

It would be like trying to explain the origins of a book by denying that the book was ever written in the first place, and that the information system or language that the book was written in, does not exist. Good luck with that!

Evidence For The Fine Tuning of The Universe

US Economy, Bush vs Obama (Part 2 of 2)

In part one [US Economy, Bush vs Obama (Part 1 of 2)] of my analysis of the USA's economy under George W Bush and Barrack Obama, I discussed the Global Financial Crises and how none of the economic numbers of either President can be taken straight "as is" without considering that terrible economic crash. Through a mix of government action and inaction that added up over the years (a mix of forcing banks into making bad loans while at the same time de-regulating strict codes of conduct for bank finances), the economic system of the US spiraled and collapsed beginning in 2007, triggered in part by a crash of the overly inflated housing market (caused by bad sub-prime bank loans).


Economy Under George W Bush

George W Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, a Republican, entered office in January 2001 and was replaced by Barrack Obama of the Democrats in January 2009. George W Bush became President under a flagging economy, one that had been quite strong under Bill Clinton for most of his run, but that had taken a serious hit from the "dot com" bubble and crash. There were fears of recession on the near horizon as economic numbers were almost all going in the wrong direction. Making matters even worse was the September 11 terrorist attack on the United States that caused a very serious hit to the economy as world confidence in the USA's security took a major beating. Note that despite the fact that President Bill Clinton (a Democrat) was the last President to have non-defecit national budget (the government was actually taking in more money than it was spending!), many signs of a bad economy (and what was coming to fruition by 2007) were already well under way. The biggest indicators of bad things to come were that the debt of Americans was increasing substantially while the savings were evaporating, even before Bush became President. That trend continued to escalate right through until the financial collapse epitomized by the crash in the stock market in late September 2008.

In 2001, when Bush became President, the US economy was in recession (beginning in 2000) with a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth rate of 0.3%. Investments were way down, the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) was wavering up and down right around a 0% increase, and unemployment was going up. George W Bush became leader of the US in the midst of a flagging economy (of course, "flagging" is much better than outright collapsing, like Obama faced).

Now for some specific numbers. Remember that Bush was President for fully 8 years, while Obama has been president for only just under 4.

Annual GDP Growth: 2.5% average over 8 years

Job Growth: Bush had job growth 52 months (4.3 years) in a row until the economic collapse.

Unemployment Rate: Bush had a larger total labour force to work with than Obama and had an amazingly low unemployment rate of 5.3% average over 8 years. The Unemployment rate at it's best was 4.4% in March 2007 and before the economic collapse was at its worst in June 2003 at 6.6%.

Federal Debt: George W Bush accumulated one of the largest national debts in US history, largely thanks to the 2 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq followed by the huge economic stimulus package and bailouts at the end of his Presidency. Under Bush's administration, the national debt doubled in 8 years (from before his first budget to his last budget). At the time, such a massive rise in government costs over 8 years was shocking. 5 trillion in 8 years!

Income Inequality: Under George W Bush's economic policies, he was lambasted for the fact that the richest 1% of the US population were getting much richer during the economic boom (good times) than the average American citizen, getting 65% of all growth in earnings compared to the rest of the population.

Poverty: Before the recession began in December 2007, the percentage of US citizens at or below the poverty line was at 12.5% of the population.


Economy Under Obama

Job Growth: Obama has had 12 months straight of job growth (1 year), from August 2011 to August 2012.

Annual GDP Growth: 1.5% 2012 so far, as of August. A 2% growth rate or above shows good economic growth. A rate below 2% indicates a bad economy. Economists say that for the Unemployment rate to drop much, the GDP will need to increase to 3% or higher over the next few years.

Unemployment: Currently as of August 2012, 8.1% Unemployment, but with the lowest total labour force (# of workers) in 30+ years. The huge drop in labour participation accounts for most of the apparent drop in the Unemployment rate under Obama (10.4% Unemployment at its worst). If Obama had the same labour force levels as Bush had at their worst, the US unemployment rate would currently stand at 11.2%. It is also notable that the vast majority of the jobs that were lost since the recession were full time jobs whereas most of the jobs added under Obama have been part time jobs, not full time jobs. A part time job, though, is obviously better than no job.

Income Inequality: If George W Bush was attacked for the growing disparity between the rich and the poor, Obama has REALLY screwed it up. The richest 1% in America have accounted for 93% of all earnings and wage increases in the past 4 years under Obama. The rich are getting far richer in the last 4 Obama years than they did under 6 years during Bush's economic boom, and the middle class has been shrinking and bleeding money while the poor are even worse off. What's especially shocking is that this is the exact sort of thing Obama promised he was going to do away with, the rich getting richer while everyone else was getting poorer. Instead, it's gotten much worse as more of the wealth has transferred up to the rich and away from the lower and middle classes. Huffington Post (April 11, 2012): Income Inequality Worse Under Obama Than George W Bush.

As the Huffington Post says:

That means the rising tide has lifted fewer boats during the Obama years -- and the ones it's lifted have been mostly yachts.

Poverty: A record number of people in the US now live below the poverty line, which accounts for 15.7% of the population. USA Today (July 22, 2012): USA Poverty On Track to Rise Highest Since 1960s. The Economic Collapse (November 12, 2011): Extreme Poverty Now At Record Levels.

Federal Debt:  In just under 4 years of government, Obama's government has spent about as much as Bush's government did in 8 years plus two wars.   ABC News (March 12, 2012): National Debt Has Increased More Under Obama Than Bush.

The Debt rose $4.899 trillion during the two terms of the Bush presidency. It has now gone up $4.939 trillion since President Obama took office.

If Mr. Obama wins re-election, and his budget projections prove accurate, the National Debt will top $20 trillion in 2016, the final year of his second term. That would mean the Debt increased by 87 percent, or $9.34 trillion, during his two terms.

Unlike Bush's $5 trillion in 8 years. Obama's got $5 trillion in just under 3 years. National debt is an important factor when considering an economy because federal debt has a direct impact on all financial investments, international trade, and overall consumer economic confidence. You'll find that usually when an open government has a surplus or a neutral (even) yearly budget, their economies tend to grow.


Conclusions

Who's economy was better? Clearly George W Bush's, and that's despite coming into power during an economic recession, which his government quickly turned around. Of course, it could also be argued that a substantial portion of the "boom" (or growth) in Bush's years as President was based upon a massive economic bubble (unsustainable fast growth that was based upon a fairy tale instead of solid math), which then popped and crashed in the last 2 years of his presidency. Which then left Obama becoming President amidst one of the worst economies in US history, comparable to the crash in The Great Depression.

The big news, however, should be where the economy goes from here, and how well has Obama's administration managed to turn the economic ship of the United States around (like Bush did for the recession in 2001 when he became President).

Unfortunately, none of those numbers are all that good for Obama. It has been by far the slowest recovery from any recession on record, even when compared against The Great Depression. In fact, it has been so slow and lackluster, that there is still a lot of talk about whether or not the US economy is even IN a recovery at all. Forbse (August 1, 2012): Obama Wins Gold For Worst Recovery Ever. If the US economy crashes again (which tragically, it very well might within the next year no matter who becomes the next US President), then historians may end up grouping this "mild recovery" in with the greater whole of a decade long depression like what happened with The Great Depression of the 1930s.

The current signs of a high unemployment rate, a record low in labour force participation, record highs in government spending, record highs in poverty, food stamp and welfare usage, and a small growth in annual GDP make the "recovery" very weak, especially as the disparity between wages for the rich and the poor continues to widen. That means that most Americans are seeing little or no difference now compared to when Obama first became President.

At the very least, it'll be interesting to look back on this 10 or 20 years in the future and see how history and time has changed (or not changed) the perception of President Obama's economy compared to President Bush's.

US Economy, Bush vs Obama (Part 1 of 2)

Who's economy was/is better? Was it the economy of President George W Bush (January 2001-January 2009) or President Barrack Obama (January 2009 to Present [September 2012])?...


The Global Economic Collapse

The financial collapse that happened right before the election of President Obama in 2008 was cataclysmic. The world economy literally imploded in tandem with the USA's economy. This needs to be considered when analyzing the economies of both US presidents (Bush and Obama), because it had (and still has) huge ramifications.

For most of George W Bush's eight year run as America's 43rd President, the economy was actually quite good (even too good), but it ended with one of the biggest (if not THE biggest) financial and economic collapses in modern history. This was in large part thanks to what is often described as an economic bubble of unrealistic prosperity and "boom" (jobs, business expansion, heavy investment, easy money through loans, etc.). The economy was on fire but burning much hotter than it probably should have. And when that economy started to contract, the gigantic holes that had formed in the global economy shredded into a million pieces.

At the beginning of 2007, Bush's 7th year as President, warning signs were starting to go off and the word "Recession" was starting to get batted around. An Economic Recession is when the economy is shrinking and/or stagnating for many months in a row instead of growing. That means employment, investment, manufacturing, bank loans and lots of other things dry up or drop. Though employment was amazingly good right through until the actual collapse, other signs like disappearing manufacturing jobs, a shrinking overall work force, rising debt loads (both in governments and households), and a weakening GDP (national Gross Domestic Production) hinted at potential disaster to come.

The economic Armageddon struck in September and October 2008, causing the greatest financial collapse in US and world markets since The Great Depression of the 1930s. A month later Obama was elected as the 44th President of the United States and took office January 2009 amidst the bottoming out of the US and global economies, which continued for a number of months beyond.

The Global Financial Crises from 2007 to 2012 (on going) has huge ripples that continue to be heavily felt all across the world, especially in the United States which was one of the hardest nations hit.


Important Considerations

It is essential to always keep in mind that George W Bush was President for 8 years during an economic boom whereas Barrack Obama has been President of the US for only 4 years in the midst of the Global Financial Crises. The importance of these two very different time periods cannot be overstated!


Who Caused The Collapse?

There are many fingers to point and almost as many people to point them at if someone wants to play the "blame game".

Generally, it was the banks and investment groups that were the heart and soul of the financial collapse. They created and rode a housing bubble based on horribly shaky investments and terrible reasoning. The whole idea was that the easier it was for everyone to get loans so they could buy houses and live large, the better the economy would be, and it was a win-win for everyone. So banks were handing out huge loans to absolutely EVERYONE who came asking, even advertising and "spreading the word" that ANYONE could get an easy low-rate mortgage for a new house and more with NO down-payment. These "great deals" were flying off the shelves as people snatched them up and dug themselves gigantic debt, many of which had little or no ability to pay the debts back. I mean, there were banks handing out house mortgages to the chronically unemployed! Of COURSE they couldn't pay it back!

Unfortunately it was hard to see just how bad it was getting because of how the banks were trading all these bad (sub-prime) mortgages and investments back and forth between each other to make even more money off of them. The banks and investors basically masked the depth and size of the problem through fancy accounting tricks. But when the booming economy started to contract and slow down, the off the wall projections of big growth evaporated and reality struck hard. As jobs started to bleed away and as it came time to pay up the monthly bills which included all these easy sub-prime loans, people simply could not pay.

"No problem!" thought the banks. They had thought this through beforehand. It's partly why they gave out the loans in the first place! Just kick the loafers out and sell the house and property. We'll make the loan back and more because housing and land prices are always going up anyway. True for the most part, until there's millions upon millions of houses and businesses up for sale at rock bottom "sell it right away" prices... And what happens when millions and millions of home owners aren't paying their mortgage bills for extended periods of time? The banks foreclose and take back all those houses... And ALL those houses go up for sale at the same time because all those bad loans were made right around the same time... Greedy banks, say hello to a bad case of supply and demand.

Sale prices tanked because the market was over saturated. There were WAY too many houses suddenly up for sale and no where near enough people to buy them. So the housing market completely imploded with the value of land and new houses dropping as much as 50% or more in many places. This means that the banks were overloaded with houses and businesses that they had paid out big money for, but that couldn't possibly return their investment. If they'd handed out a $300,000 loan for a house, the house was now worth half that! Where did all the money disappear to? It never really existed in the first place! It was "invisible" money based on severely overly valued debt (all over the place, but especially the housing market).

The easy answer to who caused the collapse is that the banks and investors (the Wall Street types) caused it. They dramatically over-invested, envisioning big things in a dream world that did not exist. They created an economic bubble (an empty air-filled dream) and it popped.


How Did The Banks Not Get Caught!?

How did they get away with it!? Now THAT is the root of the problem. Liberals (Democrats) will tell you that it was George Bush's fault for allowing it to get so out of hand in the first place. He was President. His advisers should have seen it coming and he should have stopped it before it ever got so bad. Unfortunately, a lot of people were quite blinded by the booming economy, and banking tricks hid the "empty" massive debt load very well. You'll note, however, that countries that DID NOT join in the "free easy money" lending spree by and large survived the economic collapse amazingly well (Canada, for example). Basically, it all came down to regulation. Governments that clamped down on what banks and financial institutions could do when it came to debt and lending fared well while the countries that didn't better regulate the banks fared badly.

So it's the government's fault!... Partly, yes. It's the banks (and investors) faults for doing all this when they really should have known better, but it's "the system's" fault (the government and the lack of financial smarts by every day people) that allowed them to get away with it in the first place. Then it WAS George Bush's fault!... Partly, but not entirely.

For the United States, where the bulk of all this originated, BOTH government parties are to blame! The Republicans are big on capitalism run wild to be free and do what it likes (de-regulation and all that). "The free market will keep things in check." It obviously didn't. Democrats were to blame because they were big on the "everyone needs a house and access to easy money" push. They had it in their heads that debt money is almost always better than no money, so they pushed for banks to lend, lend, lend! The Democrats were in control of Congress as of January 2007 and went on a huge spending spree as well as de-regulated what little restrictions there were on bank loans and trading so that poor people could own a nice home too. BOTH parties screwed up big time!


Yes, The Democrats Too!

Am I being unfair to the Democrats? After all, Bush was a Republican President! Didn't he and the Republicans have all the power to enact legislation to stop the banks from doing this?

The US government is set up with two major legislative branches, an executive branch, and the judicial branch. The Legislative Branch (Congress) consists of The House of Representatives and The Senate. The Executive Branch is made up of the "ruling party", the political party that won the last federal election and have their President in power. This means that the Republicans ran the Executive Branch of the US government during Bush's 2 terms. Congress, however, is made up of DIFFERENT elected officials, and it has the power to veto (over-ride) the Executive Branch if it can get a 2/3rds majority vote on a bill (law, government expenses, etc.). This is exactly what happened at the end of 2006. The Democrats gained a big majority in Congress and because of this, they heavily controlled what the overall government could do with regards to federal money and the economy. So it's no lie that both political parties were heavily involved in the financial collapse one way or another. The entire US government is set up in such a way that it's quite hard for either the Executive Branch or the Legislative Branch to do much without the approval of the other.

To make matters worse, a lot of people didn't see this coming until it was too late. As I already said. The banks were doing an impressive job at masking just how big the problem was, so even as it was burning them alive, a lot of people still had no idea just how bad it was until it all finally came crashing down.


Coming Soon...

US Economy? Bush vs Obama?  (Part 2)   (link not yet available)

Now that we've covered The Global Financial Crises of 2007-2012, next we'll look into the actual numbers of both Presidents' economies and see how they compare.

Some Tough Questions For Evolution Now

Creation.com:  The Slow Painful Death of Junk DNA

Junk DNA is a necessary mathematical extrapolation. It was invented to solve a theoretical evolutionary dilemma...

... Junk DNA is not just a label that was tacked on to some DNA that seemed to have no function; it is something that is required by evolution. Mathematically, there is too much variation, too much DNA to mutate, and too few generations in which to get it all done. This was the essence of Haldane’s work....Junk DNA is a necessary mathematical extrapolation...Without Junk DNA, evolution runs into insurmountable mathematical difficulties.

With the destruction of the "Junk DNA" and "Proteins are everything" theories that have dominated biology science for so long, a number of VERY important questions about what all this means for past studies based on the "2% of our DNA is the important stuff" must now be asked.

1) Only 2% of human and Chimpanzee DNA was very selectively compared to come up with the "proof" that we evolved from monkeys. The common quote is that about 98% of our DNA matches Chimpanzees, but that study ONLY bothered to check 2% of the DNA, the Protein Coding portions, NOT all the "Junk DNA". So then it turns out that our DNA is only a 1.98% match to Chimpanzees, NOT 98%. The same goes for all other studies that analyze this very miniscule amount of DNA with the assumption that this tiny bit of the puzzle was actually the whole thing. Comparing us to whales, or lizards to fish, and on and on it goes. ALL of those studies and the "look how similar we all are thanks to evolution" preaching becomes null and void. It's like comparing 2 pieces of two different puzzles and announcing that the puzzles are "the same" because they're both puzzle pieces. You're forgetting all the other pieces that make each puzzle so unique!

2) Mutation, Genome Clocks, and the rate of Evolution through extrapolation: What happens to all of the studies done that calculate out mutation rates and backtrack through time and history how all life evolved from common ancestors? A ton of this stuff is based on genetic data and mutation rate extrapolation (guesses and calculations), but these largely ignored the 98% of the human genome that doesn't code for Proteins. What happens now to all the constructed charts and connections based on genetic mutation? What about the tree of life, genetic mutation clocks, and all the other connected studies that based their entire premise on the analysis of a tiny fraction of the genetic data? Are now all the projections of timelines and mutations blown completely out of the water? Will they be dropped until completely new timelines, calculations and studies containing ALL available genetic data are put together? My guess is "absolutely not!" Why? Because this stuff is a FACT, no matter what the NEW and improved data and facts say.

When the serious study of genetic data took off in the 1990s, the huge amounts of genetic data were often used to prop up Neo-Darwinism despite lots of data not matching up neatly with what was already believed. This was a problem for evolutionists, but they still made sure it worked. They just said, "Evolution isn't as neat and tidy as we previously thought." NO change in the bulk of the pre-conceived assumptions and beliefs. They simply warped it all to incorporate the changes they could and ignored the rest that they couldn't force fit.

Basically, there's a gigantic stack of genetic studies and beliefs out there that are heavily based upon this idea that most of our genome is "not functional" or "not that important", and thus ignorable. ALL of this stuff needs to be completely labotomized and done over because it all was missing vast amounts of genetic data to begin with. However this stuff is so strongly believed as certain truth that there's NO WAY that evolutionists and scientists will STOP basing much of their beliefs and presentations on the "old paradigms". It's just way too ingrained into their way of thinking, into their worldview. It would be like ripping the Holy Bible out of the Christian church or the Koran out of Islam. The belief systems are fundamental to their core and everything else that depends upon it. It can not be, and will not be, allowed to falter, no matter what the scientific evidence actually says.

"We Never Said It Was Junk DNA..."

HEAVILY UPDATED with quotes and references! (as of 12:30 pm Sept 6 2012)

Evolution News (September 5, 2012): Junk No More!

Junk No More: ENCODE Project Nature Paper Finds "Biochemical Functions for 80% of the Genome"

An impressive 30 studies have been released and grouped together (mostly through the ENCODE genome sequencing project) in the peer reviewed science magazine "Nature" that has verified a longstanding Intelligent Design hypothesis, that the vast majority of the human genome is NOT "Junk DNA" or "evolutionary garbage" but is in fact functional.

While Intelligent Design scientists are obviously quite enjoying this hugely important vindication of their scientific predictions (a very important part in proving a scientific theory correct), the evolutionists are having to do some serious back pedaling.


A Summary Of "Junk DNA"

"Junk DNA" has been a long standing assumption by evolutionists that most of the genome (in humans as well as all other life) is mostly "left over evolutionary garbage", DNA that we no longer use or need because we've evolved out of needing it. It has been jokingly called "Junk DNA" for many years because of this. 2% of the human genome codes for Proteins, and until recently (and now especially), this tiny drop-in-the-bucket of our total DNA has been considered pretty much "the whole story". The reason this assumption has dominated so strongly and for so long is because evolutionists had convinced themselves (believed whole heartedly) that unless the DNA is being transcoded by RNA (like the 2% of Protein coding DNA), then it is useless or not functional. Because of this belief, 98% of our DNA has largely been ignored except by the occasional study here and there.

For more about "Junk DNA" and the debate over it, see my blog post from June 2012 about this exact issue (before this new comprehensive study came out proving it all true).

As Intelligent Design scientists have been studying and pointing out for well over 10 years now, it turns out that the vast majority of our DNA (ALL of our DNA, including the 98% that has mostly been ignored) is functional (actively used). The studies by the ENCODE project and connected studies released in the peer reviewed science magazine Nature state that at least 80% of our DNA is actually (and surprisingly, to them) functional, and that indications are good that the rest of our DNA is also functional (they just haven't figured out how it's being used yet, though signs indicate that it IS being used). That's a massive blow to a main tenet of Neo-Darwinism and a big boost to Intelligent Design.


Let The Excuses And Falsehoods Fly!

Excuses and falsehoods are already starting to pop up on atheist websites and pro-evolution websites to try and "cover their butts" on this issue. Not surprising considering the huge implications (and embarrassment) of it all, and how dedicated these people are to Neo-Darwinism on the whole.

Here is a list of the things that these folks are likely to say (and starting to say already) in an attempt to pretend that they didn't just get completely outdone by Intelligent Design theory and science.



1) We knew this all along. Nothing to see here folks. All you every day non-scientist types are just catching up to what we've known for a long time...

This is the claim that seems to be the most common so far among evolutionists, that they've actually known this for a long time already. Studies HAVE been coming out for the last 5 years, and even as far back as 10 years ago, that indicated functional properties of DNA that doesn't code directly for Proteins. But the point isn't that SOME studies have found SOME functionality and usage with all this "extra" DNA. The point is that the majority of scientists and especially atheists have been making the claim that "most of it is junk" despite this evidence! But because of their previous dedication to the idea of Junk DNA in the first place, they're STILL very hesitant to accept all this new scientific data.

For example:  At "The Mermaid's Tale" Pro-Evolution Science Blog...
More Advertising, Yet A Lesson To Learn

They confirm our idea that, at its base, DNA controls protein production and perpetuates itself, but through many subtle, complex functional roles.  Many are still to be discovered, but a much larger fraction of the genome is found to have some function, and the protein coding parts have been shown to comprise only a few percent of the whole of our DNA.  Whether ENCODE has actually determined the function of 80% of the genome, as they now claim, is debatable.

Basically, the claim is, "We knew this all along..." PLUS "I highly doubt this study is anything more than hype and promotion anyway and isn't actually saying what it seems to be saying..." That's a great double whamy! First, "We've known this all along." AND "It probably isn't true anyway." WOW! Talk about covering all your bases just in case!

And another pro-evolution blog post regarding the new set of studies...
A Slightly Different Response to Today's ENCODE Hype

The claim that “lots of the genome isn’t junk after all!” is not new — people have been using this straw man for nearly 20 years. What’s novel is that the ENCODE authors are claiming that there is now evidence that 80% of the genome shows signs function, or at least of “specific biological activity”. Many people are not convinced by this, me among them. I am especially unimpressed by this figure when I read the ENCODE project lead’s own words on the subject of “function” and the 80% figure.

Again, "Nothing to see here folks. We've known this all along." PLUS "It probably isn't true anyway. Just a load of hype and show."

Also, the previous linked to article states:

Even after 5 years, $185 million, and a massive study by hundreds of researchers, there still is only evidence of function for 80% of the human genome under the most extremely generous interpretation. That leaves 20% without any signs of function whatsoever.

Oh my! It cost LOTS of money and they didn't figure out what the other 20% of the genome does? That's just terrible!... Come on! You guys were arguing that MOST of the genome is non-functional garbage. Now you're arguing that the functioning of 20% is still unknown, so they're still proven right... Give me a break!

Then that same writer goes into a spout of obfuscation, re-defining terminology and pretending that what was meant by "functional" and "not functional" wasn't really what we think or thought it was.

To get that 80% figure, you have to have a very loose definition of “function” indeed.

Basically, "It's only functional so long as you count ANY function." This is getting very disappointing. Now you're arguing that when you were before saying that "NO function" (as in ANY function AT ALL) existed, you actually meant "no MAJOR function"... *rolls eyes*

Some are undoubtedly functional, but it is quite a stretch to suggest that millions of these elements are needed to regulate our 20,000 genes (but not the 30,000 genes of a pufferfish). As Carl Sagan said, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, and so far we simply do not have it when it comes to claiming that the majority of the elements in the genome have a biological function.

"Because we're all just evolved animals and fish, so most of this "extra DNA" is obviously garbage or not that important anyway..." *heavy sigh* They're a dedicated bunch aren't they?


2) We never really MEANT that it was "Junk", just that we didn't yet know any function for it. That's good science, not assuming something until we have solid proof...

The proof has been piling up for many years now, and Intelligent Design scientists have been pointing this out constantly with articles online citing such scientific studies and even publishing entire books about the topic. The proof has been there for quite a while, and the evidence pointing to this reality has been piling up for even longer. "Good science" doesn't consider most of the human genome to be garbage or non-functional just because we don't know the function of it yet. THAT is the key problem here. They assumed that all this DNA was junk, evolutionary left overs, and they stated as much repeatedly over and over again, even using it for a long time as a major argument point against Intelligent Design. "98% of our DNA is non-functional and that's exactly what we'd expect if Evolution were true!"... If they had simply said, "We don't know the function of it yet" or something else similar to that, this whole thing wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal. But that's NOT what they've been saying all this time. They've been mostly argueing that this stuff truely had NO function BECAUSE it was evolutionary junk.


3) We've got scientists who suspected function for some of this "Junk DNA" too!...
Smithsonian.com: Junk DNA Isn't Junk, And That Isn't Really News

Remember in high school or college, when you learned about all that DNA inside of you that was junk? The strings and strings of nonsense code that had no function? A recent blitz of papers from the ENCODE project have the world abuzz with news that would rip that idea apart.
But, like many things that stick around in text books long after science has moved on, the “junk DNA” idea that ENCODE disproved, didn’t really need disproving in the first place.

Yes, there were a few out there who admitted even many years ago that the concept of "Junk DNA" was probably wrong and probably even harmful to the progress of science. But these people were very few and far between and only in very recent years have more scientists finally started to admit that all this DNA does actually have function and is actually being used.

However this is a classic case of "We're always right, even when we're wrong." Basically they point out evolutionists that DID get this right even from early on, and claim that this is proof that evolutionism didn't get it wrong. Sorry, but you can't constantly argue the complete opposite and then turn around and say you were right all along because of a few open-minded scientists that didn't follow the mainstream belief. Just because a very small minority of evolutionists didn't get hoodwinked by this bad Neo-Darwinist assumption doesn't mean that the rest of you guys didn't get completely blown apart. You guys are all about "consensus" until the "consensus" gets found out to be completely wrong, and then you shout, "not following the consensus is good science!" This is classic stance jumping, basically, "We're always right, even when we're wrong." As long as ONE scientist SOMEWHERE suggested that there MIGHT be function to SOME of this other DNA, then they claim that the scientific community as a whole didn't grossly screw this up. Sorry, but those smart few people who weren't blinded by Neo-Darwinism are the clear exception to the rest of you.


4) The STUDY is Junk! The scientists are lying!

Michael Eisen, a science writer, on his Twitter feed says about the study:

"measurable biochemical activity" is a meaningless measure of functional significance.

Just like from "The Mermaid's Tale", this science writer who has dedicated himself to the evolutionism debates says that the comprehensive study by the best genome sequencing and analysis project on the planet consisting of hundreds of top scientists is wrong and blowing things way out of proportion. They're basically lying to make the news... Denial at it's finest. These guys constantly argue that science is above hype, promotion, half-truths and lies, and then when it doesn't agree with them that's exactly what they claim the science is. Oi!


Closing

Those are just a few claims that the evolutionists are already starting to make, and likely to continue making for weeks and months (even years) to come. This has all been done before repeatedly as evolutionism has gotten things very wrong and had to completely change its stance and pretend like it never actually did so. All in all it always comes down to, "We might have gotten that one thing wrong, but we're right about everything else, so trust us. Even if something is currently wrong, we'll eventually get it right anyway. Good science goes in the direction that the evidence points, even when the evidence contradicts long held scientific beliefs."

That's very true, but sooner or later it just becomes ridiculous the amount of effort that goes into "covering the trail" of complete missteps that the scientific community have taken based entirely on the assumption that Neo-Darwinist evolution is true. It gets to the point where it's obvious that no matter HOW wrong they are on even MAJOR issues, they simply re-warp the evolutionary system to accommodate it.

This is NOT science, it's desperate blind religion and faith. Science is falsifiable. If a bunch of theories are being overturned then the basis for those bad theories is probably wrong too, otherwise they wouldn't keep getting these big issues wrong in the first place. Intelligent Design didn't get this wrong. So why did evolutionism? But that doesn't matter to evolutionists who are drinking the evolution kool aid. They KNOW in their heart of hearts that evolution must be true so no matter what the evidence says, they believe Neo-Darwinism, even if they have to re-write their core theories every 5 or 10 years in order to still make it work.